His words were true; there was another plunge or two, then a faint quivering ran through her frame, and then all was still. Henderson stood watching her, and then with a groan he covered his face with his hand, and turned away.
“It’s a bad business,” said the farrier. “Who on earth could have shot her?”
“It was just at the turn in Henley Wood,” repeated Reid; “we were coming home as nicely as could be when I heard a shot close at hand. Poor Bess a-kind o’ jumped in the air, and then started galloping, and never stopped till we got to the stable door.”
“And you saw no one?” asked the farrier.
“Not a living soul; it was too dark,” answered Reid.
“And what were you doing out so late?” asked Henderson, in a strange, hollow voice, now looking at his groom.
“Well, ye know, master, I’d been buying that mare I told you of, and Skidder and I wet the bargain, and I got a bit tight. But I waited till I was all right, and then I was driving away quietly home—”
“You sacrificed her life,” interrupted Henderson, darkly and sternly, “the best horse a man ever rode,” and then without another word he strode out of the stable, his heart full of inexpressible bitterness.
For he knew that his own hand had killed the creature he had loved. Brown Bess had been his favorite horse, and had been given to him by his father shortly before his death, and Henderson remembered at this moment his pride and pleasure when he received the gift.
And another memory, too, rose before him; a memory fraught with remorse and shame, and the face of the dead girl, Elsie Wray, seemed to hover near him in the darkness, as he had seen her in the days of her early love. He had ridden Brown Bess to the Wayside Inn shortly after his father had presented her to him, for the purpose of showing Elsie his new possession. And when he was leaving the girl had followed him out of the house, and laid her dark head against the mare’s glossy neck and kissed her.